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Aiza Gazuyeva
Aiza Gazuyeva (also transliterated Gazueva and variably known as Aizan, Elza, Luisa or Luiza) was a young Chechen woman who became the first shahidka (Chechen female suicide bomber).Chechen “Black Widows” Organized or Driven by Despair?, Moscow Defense Brief, 3/2007 In November 2001, Gazuyeva assassinated through suicide attack the Russian General Gaidar Gadzhiyev (or Geidar Gadzhiev), commandant of the Urus-Martan military district in Chechnya, the man she believed was directly responsible the death of her husband.From dismal Chechnya, women turn to bombs, China Daily, 2004-09-10Russia: Nord-Ost Anniversary Recalls Ascent Of Female Suicide Bomber, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, October 27, 2006 This spontaneous attack was unclaimed by the Chechen rebels.Female Suicide Bombers, International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, February 12, 2003 Not much is known for sure about Gazuyeva, a semi-legendary figure in Chechnya, who at the time of her death was either 18Chechen women to drive killer trucks, Gazeta, 22 October 2008 or 20 years old. It is said that she had lost a husband (they were married only for two months), two brothers, and a cousin in the war before her spontaneous revenge attack. In one traumatic event, her disabled brother (who had lost both legs to a land mine in the first war) was shot dead without reason by the Russian troops near their family home. Gadzhiyev, an ethnic Avar military officer commonly accused by locals of atrocities against civilians, reportedly summoned Gazuyeva to witness the death of her arrested husband,The Chechen woman and her role in the “new” society, Prague Watchdog, June 21, 2004 brutally killing him with a knife and then pulling her head into the gaping stomach wound. Skazane na zabijanie, Interia.pl, 27 February 2006 According to the other version, the general told Gazuyeva that he killed her husband with his own hands during an interrogation.The Calculus of Chechnya's Suicide Bombers, The Jamestown Foundation, January 12, 2005 On November 29, 2001, Gazuyeva blew herself up with a bundle of hand grenades after she approached the general and a group of other Russian soldiers in front of the military commandant's office (Rus. komendatura). Reportedly, her last words were: "Do you recognize me?", to which Gadzhiyev replied: "I have no time to talk to you!" - after the general's answer, Gazuyeva detonated the grenades hidden under her clothes.A Cult of Reluctant Killers, Los Angeles Times, February 04, 2004 Gazuyeva died instantly, her head blown off several meters away. Gadzhiyev, who was wearing a flack jacket, was critically wounded (losing both of his eyesSpecial-operations of Chechen mujahideen, Kavkaz Center, 4 December 2001 and one arm) and died of his injuries days later. Two other Russian soldiers were also killed in the blast and two more were injured.Chechnya’s Suicide Bombers: Desperate, Devout, or Deceived?, American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, September 16, 2004 The incident was followed by a wave of severe reprisals by federal forces against family of Aiza Gazuyeva and the local population. The soldiers blew up the home of Gazuyeva and her parents, as well as the houses belonging to at least four other families, while several men from Gazuyev's family were detained and beaten. Soon after the attack, 72 people were detained in the city of Urus-Martan and some of them were reported to having been "disappeared". One day after the general's assassination, several people were detained in the nearby village of Alkhan-Yurt and some of them were later found murdered (on December 13, disfigured bodies of several men killed by explosive devices were discovered in Chechnya and later identified as residents of three villages in the Urus-Martan region who had disappeared early in December, including four who were among those detained in Alkhan-Yurt: Lom-Ali Yunusov, his relative Musa Yunusov, Shamil Dzhemaldayev and Aslan Taramov).Terror with Terror: Conditions in the Urus-Martan region after the attempted assassination of the military commander of the region, General G. A. Gadzhiev., Memorial, December 2001 References Category:1980s births Category:2001 deaths Category:Russian people of Chechen descent Category:Female suicide bombers Category:People of the Chechen wars Category:Russian assassins Category:Russian Muslims Category:Suicide bombing in the Chechen wars Category:Women in 21st-century warfare Category:Women in European warfare Category:Suicides in Russia Category:Chechen people Category:Female suicides Category:Russian murderers